Move 2 (Chapter 1.2)
Jul. 8th, 2017 04:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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hexarchate_rpgTime: 702 (high calendar)
Place: a rebellion outpost near a stable rift
[GM's note: Elesa's player had to drop, so we'll just say that Crow tells you she's been called away to another last-minute mission better suited to her talents and move on.]
[Also, for your ease of reference, Mission information, mostly from Move 1 so far.]
The interior of the Wasp is more spacious than it looks. Crow, when asked, informs you that this is a precursor to variable layout technology. For the curious (and those from earlier eras), she explains that variable layout is a hexarchate-era technology that allows affected areas to be bigger inside than out, and for the "rooms" to be rearranged almost at will, or connected with internal teleporters. The Wasp's version isn't advanced enough for room-shuffling, but it does mean that the moth will easily accommodate all of you.
The Wasp contains, at minimum:
- a cockpit for a pilot and copilot
- a gunnery room (weapons/defenses can also be automated)
- an office for the commander [that's you,smokedetective]
- a small medical bay--the Wasp can suggest first aid treatments with an expert system, and there's room in "freezers" to put up to two people in a primitive form of stasis so they can be taken to a real hospital elsewhere if someone gets badly injured [this will only happen to your character with your permission, but could make for fun drama if you are so inclined]
- a combination galley and dining room
- a large common room suitable for entertaining (which begs the question of just what kind of entertaining pirates do), although its decor is rather lacking unless someone wants to play with the matter printer
- sufficient quarters for everyone to have a cabin of their own
- a capacious storage hold filled with strange liquors and other miscellaneous trade goods, as well as occasional miscellaneous supplies
You can address the Wasp's mothgrid from anywhere within it, or access it through slates that communicate with the computers.
Once you reach the rift, travel through it is as simple as pointing the Wasp at it and going through. Inside the rift, you won't be able to see anything but a shimmering blue haze, and it is highly, highly disrecommended that anything alive go extravehicular while in rift transit; there are robots (non-sentient) to take care of any repairs that might become necessary.
[Note to Alaric: if he's paying attention to this, he may notice that, interestingly, Mothra itself appears to be unharmed by the rift energies, thanks to some sort of innate resistance. Mothra may or may not have anything to say about this if he can figure out a way to communicate with it.]
[General notes and formatting: Since I'm going to have probably limited internet access over the next odd-week per this announcement, this is what I suggest:
Players should familiarize themselves with the Wasp and feel free to set out toward the rift in order to commence their mission with travel through the rift. I don't think one day = one move makes sense, especially during boring travel bits. Feel free to use different threads for different conversations that may take place during different times in the journey (one thread for day one, another for day two, etc.)--whether that means making further plans, or devising clever weapons using the matter printer, or getting to know each other, or looking up the briefing materials on heptarchate culture/tech in the target year 361, etc. Just to make thread navigation easier, I suggest that henceforth threads about major topics be titled to help people navigate. If there's a major topic change, or you need to flag an OOC query/discussion, change the comment title, e.g.
We don't need to be strict about this, but if we do this for major topics it'll probably help navigating threads.
Once I get back the week after Readercon, we'll see about moving the action forward on the other side of the rift!]
Place: a rebellion outpost near a stable rift
[GM's note: Elesa's player had to drop, so we'll just say that Crow tells you she's been called away to another last-minute mission better suited to her talents and move on.]
[Also, for your ease of reference, Mission information, mostly from Move 1 so far.]
The interior of the Wasp is more spacious than it looks. Crow, when asked, informs you that this is a precursor to variable layout technology. For the curious (and those from earlier eras), she explains that variable layout is a hexarchate-era technology that allows affected areas to be bigger inside than out, and for the "rooms" to be rearranged almost at will, or connected with internal teleporters. The Wasp's version isn't advanced enough for room-shuffling, but it does mean that the moth will easily accommodate all of you.
The Wasp contains, at minimum:
- a cockpit for a pilot and copilot
- a gunnery room (weapons/defenses can also be automated)
- an office for the commander [that's you,
smokedetective]- a small medical bay--the Wasp can suggest first aid treatments with an expert system, and there's room in "freezers" to put up to two people in a primitive form of stasis so they can be taken to a real hospital elsewhere if someone gets badly injured [this will only happen to your character with your permission, but could make for fun drama if you are so inclined]
- a combination galley and dining room
- a large common room suitable for entertaining (which begs the question of just what kind of entertaining pirates do), although its decor is rather lacking unless someone wants to play with the matter printer
- sufficient quarters for everyone to have a cabin of their own
- a capacious storage hold filled with strange liquors and other miscellaneous trade goods, as well as occasional miscellaneous supplies
You can address the Wasp's mothgrid from anywhere within it, or access it through slates that communicate with the computers.
Once you reach the rift, travel through it is as simple as pointing the Wasp at it and going through. Inside the rift, you won't be able to see anything but a shimmering blue haze, and it is highly, highly disrecommended that anything alive go extravehicular while in rift transit; there are robots (non-sentient) to take care of any repairs that might become necessary.
[Note to Alaric: if he's paying attention to this, he may notice that, interestingly, Mothra itself appears to be unharmed by the rift energies, thanks to some sort of innate resistance. Mothra may or may not have anything to say about this if he can figure out a way to communicate with it.]
[General notes and formatting: Since I'm going to have probably limited internet access over the next odd-week per this announcement, this is what I suggest:
Players should familiarize themselves with the Wasp and feel free to set out toward the rift in order to commence their mission with travel through the rift. I don't think one day = one move makes sense, especially during boring travel bits. Feel free to use different threads for different conversations that may take place during different times in the journey (one thread for day one, another for day two, etc.)--whether that means making further plans, or devising clever weapons using the matter printer, or getting to know each other, or looking up the briefing materials on heptarchate culture/tech in the target year 361, etc. Just to make thread navigation easier, I suggest that henceforth threads about major topics be titled to help people navigate. If there's a major topic change, or you need to flag an OOC query/discussion, change the comment title, e.g.
immolationfox: Weapons Inventory
Shuos Jedao happily goes through ALL the crates in the hold to check for any weapons, including knitting needles.
overlyloyalhawk: re: Weapons Inventory
Gized sighs and goes tokeep an eye on Jedaohelp him count, since Jedao sucks at numbers.
immolationfox: [paging GM]
[Are there any small arms in here? Grenades? Also, whiskey?]
We don't need to be strict about this, but if we do this for major topics it'll probably help navigating threads.
Once I get back the week after Readercon, we'll see about moving the action forward on the other side of the rift!]
no subject
Date: 2017-07-08 11:47 pm (UTC)He’s looking to strike up conversations, especially to anyone he failed to speak to in the hangar. Much more important to (suss out demographics) pet Ankat’s dog, given the difficulties of getting information off those bugs.
[For the honor of his Intro to Griddiving class, Mikodez should be capable of holding his own against other people on the ship for a little while, BUT personally I can just about turn on a computer, so I hope people will permit the elision of any hacking sequences. Mikodez will have some saved files of his own that are mostly innocuous, like boring literature anthologies, calligraphy manuals, and scores of those cooking videos for making desserts.]
[completely optional security engineering resource!]
Date: 2017-07-09 12:07 am (UTC)Meanwhile, if you feel like reading a free and super-accessible introduction to security engineering, including interesting tidbits about hacking, may I recommend Ross Anderson's Security Engineering 2nd ed.? COMPLETELY OPTIONAL, not required for this RPG. But the whole thing reads like a collection of Leverage plot hooks!]
[special crafting bugs]
Date: 2017-07-09 12:44 am (UTC)Re: [special crafting bugs]
Date: 2017-07-09 01:29 am (UTC)And thank you for the link! I'm on chapter two and skimming is not happening, because going into random chapters in hopes of finding something that wouldn't be Shuosish has failed.]
no subject
Date: 2017-07-09 01:31 am (UTC)"Avrayen, right?" they say, and their usually pleasant smile is just on the wrong side of threatening. "How are you doing? Settling in alright?"
They're pretty sure their concern sounds genuine, and to an extent, it is. The tone of their smile might ruin it, though. But it's best to get a handle on the kid early.
[Sorry to jump in here, but I thought that Ashari following Mikodez and both of them trying to plant bugs without the other noticing would be funny. And also, if Mikodez does offer to accompany Ashari to the matter printer, that's something that they'd find very agreeable, as they absolutely love sugar.]
no subject
Date: 2017-07-09 02:59 am (UTC)“Hungry, mostly. But that can wait until after the alcohol.” If Ashari means to accompany him all the way down to the storage hold, he will ransack the crates of alcohol until he’s stopped.
He considers, then attempts the worst Andan bow he’d seen, based on the animation in a game he played once. (The elbow was fixed while the forearm zoomed far into the sky, and while it had been created during in a timed exercise, that was no excuse, since it hadn’t been entered into the “Mockery of Other Factions” category.) Most Andan insist on being obvious about their affiliation, but fashions changed so quickly that foreign agents avoided that faction unless they could be sure of no other Andan appearing to them, which was certainly true of this mission.
“I didn’t catch your name earlier.” He wasn’t about to defer to them anyway, but time to desperately reason to himself that: unlike the outcast Andan before him, he was still a cadet of the Shuos, probably. Hopefully. And as enthrallment depended on the calendar which depended on the factions, this makes him higher in status than the looming, clinking wall of tasteful ornamentation before him.
[*SORRY**]
no subject
Date: 2017-07-09 04:09 am (UTC)"Oh, you poor darling. Here." Ashari produces a small, but dense nutrient block from their pocket. "It's..."-they check the wrapper and wrinkle their nose-"chocolate flavored. Hopefully. I'm Ashari. And you really must be turned around. I think the cargo hold's in the other direction."
Hopefully, establishing the hierarchy on the ship, and maybe displaying some parental instincts will at least sway the kid, or at least throw him off guard. And it's always good to see how someone reacts to being offered food.
[SAPPHIRE ORBS LOL. I have to say, all is forgiven, but only because "looming, clinking wall of tasteful ornamentation" is by far my favorite description of Ashari.]
no subject
Date: 2017-07-09 06:10 pm (UTC)It was too late to curse at himself, even inside his own head. He missed the opportunity earlier for stopping Ashari’s appointment as the mission’s leader, and the worst time for assassinating anyone was in a closed system when you didn’t have an escape route. He had no scapegoats prepared, as the shapeshifter womanform had mysteriously departed between their time in the hangar and now. The only consolation he had was that this was not quite the most logical time for Ashari to be poisoning him in turn. The resistance might have had him killed before getting on the moth, so what could have changed between now and the start of the trip?
Behind Ashari, a door hissed as it closed, shutting off the square of light from the common room. Of course. The brief time they spent with ‘Vauhan Imsayed’ in there earlier. They were still within eyesight of that doorway, but now there were no witnesses. Ashari had one sure ally who might be a wolf, two Kel at their command, and all the briefing material that ‘Crow’ had given them earlier. They probably had codes to their rooms and the weapon locker as well. Damn.
From the outside, this deliberation looks like Mikodez checking the ingredient list of the nutrient block over. “Chocolate, chili powder, processed bacon chips, artificial mangosteen flavor, nuwheat flour.” He tears the packet open and bites through three-fifths of the bar. Ashari will be able to make out a very indistinct thank you, and have a chance to be appalled at how quickly he’s eating.
[was it poisoned :0 also thanks for letting me check off a square on the Mikodez bingo sheet.]
no subject
Date: 2017-07-10 06:47 pm (UTC)[The bar absolutely wasn't poisoned, but that did give an idea. Would you be alright with there being a tracker in that bar? So now Ashari will, in a pinch, be able to tell where Mikodez is. Mostly I just think that'll be hilarious.]
no subject
Date: 2017-07-10 07:58 pm (UTC)“If you send me a map, we can bring a few duplicates up to the kitchen first, and I’ll promise to not to mix all the bottles with walnut frosting and mulberry sprinkles.” He strolls off at the first branching of the corridor, regardless of where the cargo hold actually is. “My most useful skill is probably that. Don’t know what else I can add to a bunch of smugglers, but I used to help my sister with dyeing her moon rabbit fleeces, and I can do a spot of drop spindling or make little felt sculptures.” Both involve sharp implements, but maybe Ashari knew that already.
[SURE, but is it like an actual bug, or something that puts out a trail that would decay with time? He might feed the other two-fifths to tiny adorable puppies/robots bounding through the Wasp, if it’s the latter. And he’s probably going to be ostentatiously un-Shuos for a good while - at least an hour.]
no subject
Date: 2017-07-10 08:33 pm (UTC)Ashari and all of their siblings had, in reality, been equally mediocre at crafts, but no one needed to know that. Ashari had gotten better with time and practice.
"I have the maps here, I think. Time to test how good you really are with mixing."
[It's a trail that decays over a period of time. I'm loving this kid Mikodez.]
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:In the galley, with a cart of distilled spirits
From:Re: In the galley, with a cart of distilled spirits
From:no subject
Date: 2017-07-09 02:16 am (UTC)[These are physical bugs that record voice conversations, right? Do they take video as well? Are they feeding information back through the grid, or do you need to visit them physically to retrieve the data?]
[on bugs (the spy kind)]
Date: 2017-07-09 02:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-07-09 02:57 am (UTC)The Haodan section in Ninefox has bugs that could only detect human activity, moving onto ones that record sound, I think, but that was against Vahenz's modern warmoth equipped office. Anything that works for more drama?]
[more on bugs, the spy kind]
Date: 2017-07-09 03:14 am (UTC)Re: [more on bugs, the spy kind]
Date: 2017-07-09 03:42 am (UTC)(And after the first time he saw a pangonlin on his screen, Mikodez switched immediately to searching for tiny xenarthra. He is now on episode 132 of the classic Kel-on-planet show where the Shuos-trained Nirai deuteragonist once declaimed to his Kel partner, "You have debauched my pangolin!"]
Re: [more on bugs, the spy kind]
Date: 2017-07-09 03:25 pm (UTC)[I hope some of that tape peels off: we might want it once we arrive at our destination!]
bugged tape
Date: 2017-07-09 06:23 pm (UTC)[--I didn't realise you could change the subject! So that's...how you change thread titles...]
no subject
Date: 2017-07-09 06:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-07-09 09:18 pm (UTC)[Mikodez's signifier]
Date: 2017-07-09 11:24 pm (UTC)Re: [Mikodez's signifier]
Date: 2017-07-10 01:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-07-10 07:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-07-11 02:56 am (UTC)[range of scrying]
Date: 2017-07-11 07:20 pm (UTC)